I Just Haven't Met You Yet
by doesitweighmorethanaduck
Summary: Claire/Gretchen soulmate au. When your soulmate dies, your soulmark scabs over-everyone knows that. However, what happens when your soulmark scabs over... and then heals? And what if this happens over and over again?
1. Chapter 1

Destiny and fate are things that are often hard to understand. Some people would rather not believe in any predetermined path for their life, while others spend their whole lives looking forward to the day they meet their soulmate. Not even the world's leading scientists can quite determine just what causes soulmarks to appear, and what exactly determines who one's soulmate will be. These are questions which may never truly be answered, and as long as the true nature of this phenomenon remains a mystery, nobody can say for certain why soulmarks work the way they do. Whatever the truth behind these markings may be, we can take a small amount of comfort in knowing that there really is someone out there for everyone, even if their paths in life never cross.

"Now, as romantic as having a soulmate is in theory, there are a few things you all need to know about," the teacher said, tapping the blackboard with her ruler. "For one thing, are there any of you here who don't have a soulmark?"

There was a lot of awkward muttering and scuffing of chairs against the tiled floor of the classroom. Nobody in the class raised their hand.

"Okay," said the teacher with one of those little sighs that meant she'd been expecting somebody to put their hand up. "How about somebody with multiple soulmarks?"

More muttering; more scuffing; and still nobody raised their hand. The atmosphere inside the classroom was quickly growing painfully thick with tension. At least a few people in the class of thirty-some second-graders probably either didn't have a soulmark or had more than one, but nobody wanted to be the one to come out and admit it in front of all their friends.

"Still no?" On a third try, the teacher asked, "What about people whose soulmarks are a name usually given to the people of the same gender they are?"

This time the question was only met with confusion. In the back of the classroom, a girl with hazel eyes and long brown hair rolled up her sleeve and studied her soulmark for what was probably the millionth time. The handwriting in which the name was written was growing neater every day now; her soulmate must have been taking classes to improve their handwriting skills.

Up at the front of the classroom, the teacher cleared her throat. "If a person is the same gender as you, it means that you're both boys or both girls. Usually boys have girls as soulmates, but sometimes two boys or two girls fall in love with each other."

"That's weird," a boy who sat in the front row announced loudly, garnering a few snickers from his obnoxious gaggle of peers.

Another kid who sat towards the back of the class put her hand up. "My mommy says people like that are bad, and that God is going to punish them."

"Well, that is what some people believe," the teacher said through gritted teeth that were fixed into the shape of a smile. "But I think we should try to be accepting of everyone, no matter what our differences may be. Isn't that right, class?"

The hazel-eyed girl in the back of the classroom pulled her sleeve back down, covering up the cute, curly lettering. She didn't want to put her hand up, to become the subject of her classmates' ridicule, but the teacher had said they were supposed to...

It took the teacher a moment to notice her sitting there with her hand raised. The quiet girl who sat alone at the back and stared out the window was hard to notice amidst all the loud, rambunctious students. But the teacher did see, and the teacher did call on her, with a smile bright enough to quell her insecurities at least for a while.

"Yes, Gretchen?"

"Um, the thing you said about girls having other girls as soulmates?" Gretchen fiddled with the already frayed cuff of her sleeve, wanting to unroll it again but insecure about what her classmates might say. "I think that's me. I mean... I think my soulmate is a girl."

"That's wonderful, Gretchen; thank you for sharing!" On the blackboard, the teacher put a checkmark next to where she had written "SAME GENDER" in big blocky letters. "We welcome diversity in this class, don't we?"

She was met with a few "yeah"'s and a couple "I guess so"'s, some sounding more reluctant than others. From there the lesson moved on to theories behind the origin of soulmarks, and Gretchen was left to sit in the cross-hatches of her classmates' burning stares for the rest of the school day.


	2. Chapter 2

Although soulmates were a very important part of life, education regarding people's soulmarks or lack thereof wasn't something that there was a very strict curriculum for. In early elementary school, it was expected that children would be given at least a basic run-down on how soulmates worked, but from that point on it was viewed in a similar light to sex-ed. It wasn't something every teacher was comfortable telling children about, and certain conservative parents would rather their children not know about the one particularly unpleasant aspect of having a soulmark.

Luckily, Gretchen's seventh-grade health teacher wasn't one to let conservative parents boss him around. By this point in life, quite a few of her classmates had started dating, and she'd be lying if she said there were no cute boys she had her eyes on. She hadn't been in a real relationship yet, exactly, but she was still holding out hope that Cody Fisher would look her way someday. And then there was Jim, and Bruce, and Wesley...

And, well, of course there was Claire.

Out of all the boys she'd ever chased, and the girls she'd tried unsuccessfully to convince herself were just friends, none of them were designed by fate to be with Gretchen. The only one who filled that role-the role of soulmate-was somebody she'd never even met. One of her cousins had a family who travelled a lot, and Gretchen asked them if they'd ever met a girl named Claire Bennet, but her cousin had shaken his head and shrugged. Her soulmate remained a complete mystery to her, with the only thing she knew about her being a name.

Well, that wasn't completely true. Soulmarks changed throughout one's adolescence when one's soulmate's handwriting changed, which it was wont to do during the formative years. Soulmarks manifested when the soulmate in question learned to write, at first appearing as a messy scribble and gradually developing into something more legible. Right now, Gretchen's soulmark was written in a slightly lopsided cursive font, with the look of someone who was just learning cursive and probably hated it. The "i" in "Claire" was dotted with a little heart, and there was a smiley face next to the name. The smiley face disappeared from time to time, cluing Gretchen in on times when her soulmate might not have felt like smiling. She wished there was something she could do to cheer Claire up, whoever she was, but when they didn't even know each other in person it was hard to know what to do.

These were all things that were on Gretchen's mind as she sat cross-legged on the gymnasium floor along with the rest of her class in a semi-circle. Their gym teacher had a projector set up that was projecting a slide show up onto the wall the students were facing, and the title slide showed a generic closeup of an arm with the name "Sarah Johnson" written on it in what looked like comic sans. Above the picture of the arm, "YOUR SOULMARK AND YOU" flashed in big colourful letters.

"Alright, I'm going to start the presentation now," the gym teacher announced once he'd gotten the projector in working order. "Listen carefully, kids, because these are things you need to know about soulmates."

The first few slides of the PowerPoint were all rather basic information-things like how not all soulmates ever got a chance to meet each other, and how it was okay to date and even marry people other than your soulmate. "Soulmates aren't for everyone, and that's fine," he said, reading off the slideshow which was open on his laptop. "It's said that you should try to end up with your soulmate if you get the chance, but there's nothing wrong with winding up with someone else instead."

To further demonstrate the point, the next slide contained a short video of a man in a police uniform talking about how he'd married his wife even though she wasn't his soulmate, and she didn't have a soulmark at all.

"Now, if you want to know about my actual soulmark, I wouldn't know what to tell you-literally!" the cop was saying. "All I can tell is that it's a foreign name, and if this 'Maw-hid-ner' or whatever he's called thinks I'm going to leave America for his sake then he's sadly mistaken. I've got a perfectly good wife, and we don't need to be soulmates to be in love!"

Once the video was over, one of the kids raised his hand. "Don't ninety-five percent of non-soulmate marriages end in divorce within five to ten years?"

The gym teacher cleared his throat. "Uh, yes, that is the current statistic," he said. "But I think that has more to do with the compatibility of the individual couples than the necessity of soulmates."

The next slide was when things got serious. A picture popped up of an arm with a scar across it where the soulmark had been in the first image. The dull chatter that had persisted amongst the class throughout the rest of the presentation suddenly went silent upon seeing the scar. They'd all seen TV and movies; they knew what that scar meant.

"When your soulmate dies, your soulmark scabs over," the teacher read off the slideshow. "It can be quite a painful experience, and it usually happens with little to no warning. Over time, the scabbing may fade, but the scars it leaves never go away. This is why in movies, people will often wear long sleeves if their soulmate is dead-it's to cover up the scarring."

As the teacher spoke, a few kids glanced down at their own soulmarks, as though worried they'd suddenly scab over. Gretchen was among those to do so. She knew it was silly, but now that the teacher had mentioned it, she couldn't get the idea out of her head. Wherever Claire Bennet was, and whatever kind of person she may have been, Gretchen hoped she was staying safe.


	3. Chapter 3

The start of high school marked a lot of changes in anyone's life-harder classes with more homework being the most obvious, but there were positive changes too. In the summer before high school started, Gretchen had her first real relationship-it was with a boy who'd sat beside her in grade eight. He wound up going to a different high school than her, but the experience left a good taste in Gretchen's mouth that she wanted to replicate as often as possible. The year was filled up with flirting with any boy who'd flirt back, although nothing came of any of it.

The first day of grade nine was also the day Gretchen came out to her parents as bi. They took it fairly well, probably in no small part thanks to them having seen her soulmark before. Aside from the people who'd been in her second-grade class, nobody else knew about it yet. She wanted to tell more people, but she was already a bit of a social outcast, so coming out seemed like a risky move. Since none of the girls at her high school really appealed to her, she decided she'd wait until she met her soulmate to come out to the world at large. She'd have to find Claire eventually, right? After all, what was the point of soulmates if fate didn't at least try to push them together?

Well, the ninth grade went by with little major development where soulmates were concerned, and the following summer was filled up with enough activity to keep her mind off the matter entirely. By the time grade ten rolled around, Gretchen was starting to grow impatient to meet the girl whose name was written on her wrist. The name was written in simpler letters now, with less unnecessary loops and curls, but the "i" was still dotted with a heart. The two "n"'s in "Bennet" ran together on some days, making them resemble an "m". But whatever changes the soulmark went through, one thing remained the same: Claire was somewhere out there, and she had Gretchen's name written on her arm. Even if it took a long time, Gretchen was confident that one day they would meet, and she looked forward to it more with each passing day.

As the start of the school year approached, though, she looked around and realized that waiting any longer was just going to drive her mad. If she couldn't find her soulmate yet, there was no reason for her to close herself off to girls entirely. One day she'd meet the person she was destined to be with, but in the meantime, that cute butch with the leather jacket was a good place to start.

It was September of 2006 when Gretchen went on her first date with a girl. They didn't have much in common, so it probably wouldn't last longer than the one date, but the one was fun enough to make it one of the best nights of Gretchen's life. She woke up the next morning in a happy buzz that lasted for most of the day, texting the other girl on and off throughout the day.

Finally embracing who she was put Gretchen on a high that it would take a truly shattering event to bring her down from. Not to worry, though, because the universe had something planned that would send her crashing down without her ever seeing it coming.


	4. Chapter 4

Gretchen was sitting in her bedroom at her desk doing homework the first time it happened. A sharp, stinging pain flared up on the skin of her arm without warning. Without looking up from her studies, she scratched at her arm, but the pain only grew more intense, moving from a faint prickle into something that felt like the rash she'd gotten a few summers back after stumbling into a bush of poison ivy.

Wincing, she rolled up her sleeve to check the cause of the irritation only to see the unthinkable: the place where her soulmark was supposed to be was turning bright red and flaky, with blisters swelling up in a cluster and obscuring the signature of Claire Bennet. When she scratched at the itch, some of the skin flaked off, leaving behind no trace of any words ever having been written there. Her soulmark had scabbed over, just like her seventh-grade health teacher had warned, and now it was gone.

Bile rose in Gretchen's throat, partially because of the sight of the blisters forming on her arm and partially because she knew the implication behind them. For so long now she'd looked forward to meeting her soulmate, and now it was never going to happen. Claire was dead, and Gretchen still didn't even know what she looked like.

And then, just as quickly as Gretchen's soulmark had scabbed over, it healed. She stared in shock and amazement as the swollen, crusted skin flattened out and returned to its normal complexion as though nothing had happened. There wasn't even the slightest lingering itch where the scabs had just formed, and the most incredible thing of all... Claire's name was there again, unchanged in its cutesy cursive style. Whatever may have just happened, she was obviously still alive after all. But that was impossible-soulmarks didn't just scab over for no reason!

Flipping open the laptop her parents had gotten her for her birthday, Gretchen pulled up Google and typed "soulmark scabbing over and then healing". She got a few results, but most of them were from science fiction or fantasy stories, with almost nothing on real-life occurrences. After a bit of scrolling, though, she did come across a page on a medical website describing a similar thing happening when a person's soulmate had a near-death experience. Apparently if one's soulmate's heart stopped and they were then resuscitated, the area around their soulmark would develop a slight rash which would fade over the course of a few days. Gretchen's brow furrowed in confusion as she read the article. That wasn't what had happened to her at all. Googling the name of her soulmate didn't get her any results-she'd tried it a couple times before, but it seemed like Claire wasn't on any social media. She must have had overprotective parents. Well, from the look of things, her overprotective parents hadn't done a good enough job-that or they'd done so good a job that their daughter remained safe and sound even after dying, Gretchen thought wryly. Closing the laptop with a sigh, she flopped onto her bed and lay on her back staring up at the ceiling and wondering what in the world had just happened.


	5. Chapter 5

Over the next few days, Gretchen's soulmark scabbed over and then healed a couple more times. It never reached the point where she was anything close to used to it, but it did reach the point where she didn't panic at the sensation of her skin suddenly growing dry and blisters popping up. It always went away in a matter of seconds-well, except for that one time.

It was an ordinary night for Gretchen, but the same must not have been true for Claire, because Gretchen woke up in the middle of the night to a now all-too-familiar irritation to find that her soulmark had scabbed over yet again. Running her hand along the unsightly scabs, some of which were oozing pus, Gretchen fought back the urge to throw up.

"Honestly, Claire," she muttered to herself as she waited for the soulmark to heal like it always did, "you have got to be more careful. Who gets killed at twelve-thirty on a school night?"

She was mostly joking in an attempt to cope with her weird situation-something she'd later learn that she and her soulmate had in common-but the circumstances of this particular incident were a bit concerning. What kind of things did Claire get up to that would lead to her dying at this time of night? What kind of things did she get up to that would lead to her dying, period? And most worrying of all... why wasn't the scabbing healing this time?

"Come on, you stupid scabs, go away already," Gretchen said aloud with a bit more volume than she meant to. It never took this long for her soulmark to go back to normal. What was going on? "You're not supposed to just stay like this! You're supposed to fade away like magic, remember?"

Time ticked on excruciatingly slowly, and Gretchen's soulmark showed no signs of healing. Soon it was creeping up on 1:00 AM, and the soulmark was still gone. Where were those beautiful letters?! What had happened to Claire to make her stay down this time? Oh, god, what if she... what if this time she was really gone for good?

Sitting hunched over in her bed cradling her pocked-up arm, Gretchen began to cry. It had been over half an hour now and gaining, with her soulmark not reappearing or even a dull in the pain that came from the non-vanishing blisters and chafing skin. If the soulmark never healed-if Claire was dead, for real, not coming back this time-what would Gretchen tell her parents? What would she tell other relatives of hers? Would she ever be happy with anyone who wasn't her soulmate? Sure, she'd been happy dating others before, but there had been no real commitment to any of it. Could she be like the cop in that educational video, marrying a woman that fate didn't mean for him to be with? Or would even he eventually run into that man he actively avoided seeking out? She didn't want to lie to herself the way those types of people did. She wanted Claire to be alive, and for them to meet when the time was right and inevitably fall in love. And the more time passed without her soulmark going back to normal, the more Gretchen feared that chance would never come.

Eventually she must have cried herself to sleep, because Gretchen was awoken the next morning by the familiar blaring of her alarm clock. When she reached over to turn it off, she didn't pay any mind at first to the fact that her arm was perfectly normal and unblemished save for a few freckles and the name "Claire Bennet" written in the dark gray colour of graphite. Then the previous night's panic came rushing back, accompanied by the overwhelming relief that the soulmark-and by extension, the girl whose name it displayed-wasn't gone forever after all. It had just taken slightly longer to heal than usual. Since she still had no idea why Claire kept coming back to life in the first place, Gretchen couldn't even begin to guess at why the process had been so delayed this time, but she made a mental note to berate her soulmate for giving her such a scare if and when they finally met.

Over breakfast that morning, her parents kept giving her concerned looks until Gretchen asked what was up with them. "We thought we heard you crying last night," her mother explained. "Are you okay, honey?" she added when Gretchen stared wordlessly down at her toast. "You seem to be very on edge lately."

"I'm fine, Mom, honest," Gretchen said quickly. Trying to deflect the topic, she turned to her father, who was scrolling through the news on his work computer. He liked to look at news from all across America to get inspiration for the novel he was trying to write. "So, Dad, any interesting stories today?"

"Mm-hmm... elections coming up, an escaped convict in Nevada, and... ooh, the body of a fifteen-year-old girl went missing from a morgue this morning." Her father drummed his fingers on the keyboard, brow furrowed. "It happened in Odessa, Texas. Says here the investigators looked away for a minute and the corpse was gone."

Gretchen was instantly alert. "Do they know the time and cause of death?" she asked, trying not to sound as interested as she was. If that girl had been Claire, this could be the opportunity to finally learn a few things about her.

"There aren't a lot of details yet," he said. "But it looks like she'd died earlier last night-got a spike jabbed in her head, poor thing."

Earlier that night... then it must have been Claire. Fiddling with the sleeve of her pajama top, Gretchen thought again of her soulmate's apparent immortality. Would she just have to deal with her soulmark periodically scabbing and healing for the rest of her life?

At least she knew where her soulmate lived now, though. Upon googling high schools in Odessa, she found one called Union Wells that had a student named Claire Bennet. There were a few pictures of her on the school website. She was a cheerleader with golden blonde hair and green eyes, a bit short and all around unbearably cute. She looked like the perfect fit for her handwriting, and Gretchen was absolutely thrilled that this beautiful girl was her soulmate. There was just one slight problem.

One of the pictures on the school website showed the cheerleading squad doing warm-up exercises out of uniform. Claire was in the front and centre of the picture, wearing a t-shirt that left both her arms clearly visible. She didn't have a soulmark on either of them.

How could she not have a soulmark? That didn't make any sense! Of course, dying and coming back to life didn't make too much sense either, but still... soulmates, by definition, had to be mutual!

Well, maybe the photo had just been edited to protect her privacy. Schools and the like sometimes did that, especially for students with a soulmate of the same gender. It was honestly a pretty useful policy, since not everyone wanted the whole world to know about their soulmarks. However, a closer look at the photo showed that many of the other girls' soulmarks were visible without being blurred out in the slightest.

With a renewed fascination about her soulmate, Gretchen tried googling Claire's name a few more times. This time, she managed to find a Facebook account which was fairly standard, complete with a few more pictures of Claire (each one was prettier than the last). More importantly, looking through her Facebook page gave Gretchen an idea of her soulmate's personality. She didn't have Facebook herself so she couldn't follow her, but she added it to her saved pages and occasionally checked in on how Claire was doing. She knew it was creepy, but she just wanted to know as much as she could about the girl she was supposed to end up with one day.

There were no posts on Claire's Facebook page about death and resurrection, needless to say. She'd have to get her answers to those questions somewhere else, if from anywhere at all. However, there were enough clearly unedited pictures of her arms and wrists that left no question in the matter that Claire had no soulmark. In the spot where one should have been, there was a faint gray smudge, as though the soulmark had been erased-or like the faint mark left by an ancient burn.


	6. Chapter 6

The next couple of years were peppered with instances of Gretchen's soulmark scabbing over and healing, anywhere from a few seconds to several hours after the fact. Eventually she almost-almost-got used to it, but every time it happened, part of her was always terrified that this time it would stick.

One day, the scabbing process stopped hurting. On days when Gretchen wore long-sleeved shirts, her soulmark could scab over and she wouldn't even notice. It sickened her a bit to think that Claire could have been out there somewhere suffering without Gretchen knowing about it. She wondered once again just why her soulmate led such an often-deadly life. There was even that whole thing in the news a couple years ago, with one of her classmates being killed on homecoming night. Oddly enough, Gretchen's soulmark hadn't scabbed over on that night.

During the first three years after the first time her soulmate had temporarily died, Gretchen filled up her life with a variety of short-lived, largely performative relationships-mostly with boys, but a couple with girls. It wasn't until later on that she found out about the stereotype about slutty bisexuals, after which she felt kind of guilty about fooling around with so many people. She hated to think she was fitting a stereotype. She just wanted to try dating as many "normal" people as possible before meeting Claire and (she supposed) inevitably falling for her. It wasn't like she dreaded it; just from what she knew about Claire from her Facebook, Gretchen was halfway to being in love with her already. It was certainly already deep into crush territory. And she certainly didn't have any hangups about loving someone who apparently couldn't stay dead. In fact, she found the whole concept super cool. She just wanted to know what it was like to date someone who... well, someone who wasn't like that.

This epoch of her life came to an end soon enough, though. The start of college was such an exciting time in anyone's life that people generally didn't have much time to think about the possibility of meeting their soulmate there, and Gretchen was no exception. However, a few days in, that very thing wound up happening.

There were a couple instances early on when she saw someone in the halls who she knew she recognized from somewhere but couldn't quite put her finger on it. It wasn't until they properly met up and Gretchen got a better look at her that she recognized her from the Facebook page that she hadn't checked in on in months. After all the years of anticipating the event, it was honestly quite surreal to hear a person-a real, tangible person; someone who Gretchen could reach out and touch-introduce herself as Claire Bennet. It was bizarre to look somebody in the eyes and know that they were your soulmate. None of the grade-school PowerPoints on the complications of soulmates could have prepared her for the sheer rush of giddiness at the knowledge that the wait was finally over. Here was her soulmate-here-now!

And yet the wait wasn't really over at all, was it? For anybody else, unless they were the sort who didn't believe in soulmates (a common type of romcom character, if nothing else) when soulmates met, there was no reason not to start a relationship right away. But Claire didn't have a soulmark. If there had still been even the slightest chance that all her photos had been edited to protect her privacy, it was gone once Gretchen saw her in a tank top that showed off her completely soulmark-free arms. Befriending Claire was one thing-in fact, it happened very naturally and easily-but she had no idea that they were meant to be together.

Well, she wouldn't know until Gretchen told her, at least. Unfortunately, finding an opportune time was difficult. When Claire revealed the secret of her healing ability, it probably would have been a good time to mention it-especially after her jumping out the window had led to yet another momentary instance of Gretchen's soulmark scabbing over. (Actually, had it not been the sight of her skin turning red and blistered in combination with the sound of something hitting the pavement below, she may not have bothered to look out the window.) However, she was so relieved to finally have an explanation for the phenomenon which she'd been dealing with for three years now that she completely forgot to even mention her soulmark.

One evening, while they were in their dorm room goofing off and listening to a brand-new comedy advice podcast that had been making the rounds recently, the perfect opportunity finally arose. One of the questions submitted to the podcast involved what to do when your soulmark was a very common name, and you weren't sure if the attractive person you just met was actually your soulmate or not.

"Well, you say you don't know," one of the brothers in the podcast was saying, "but it's pretty obvious..."

"You've got to see their handwriting!" one of the others jumped in.

"UnLESS-"

"...Unless."

"...Unless they can't write!" the other brother exclaimed. "What are you going to do then?"

"But wait," said the third brother. "If they can't write, how do you even have a soulmark?"

"I mean, maybe they could write once," said the youngest. "Maybe they got their hand chopped off in a horrific accident. Let's not-let's not jump to any assumptions here."

"Oh, I see how it is," the middle brother said casually as the eldest wheezed in the background. "You've got to reattach their hand."

"Exactly!"

Pausing the podcast and taking out her earbuds-or rather, the single earbud she had in so that Claire could have the other while they listened together-Gretchen fiddled with the cuff of her sleeve. "You know, what those guys on the podcast are saying reminds me of something," she began, trying (and, judging by the sideways look Claire gave her, probably failing) to seem casual. "I've noticed you don't have a soulmark... do you know why that is?"

"I mean, I guess it's because I don't have a soulmate," Claire said with a shrug. "Heck, growing up in a conservative household and all, I hardly knew soulmarks were even a thing. I just thought the rest of my family all had tatoos."

That wasn't exactly the answer Gretchen had been hoping for, but it was along the lines of what she'd been expecting. She'd been hoping for something less obvious-something that could be the actual reason, because Claire obviously did have a soulmate; she just didn't know it yet. Once Gretchen rolled up her sleeve and showed off her soulmark, she'd know. If it weren't for the handwriting, Gretchen might have been faced with the same problem as the perosn writing into the advice podcast, but the handwriting of her soulmark was unmistakably Claire's. It was identical to the handwriting of the notes in Claire's binder, which was currently laying open on the floor tucked partway under the bed because she'd started studying and then given up partway through. Even though she didn't have a soulmark, Claire Bennet definitely had a soulmate. They were sitting right next to her at that very moment.

What if Claire didn't believe her, though? It was something you saw all the time in those true-crime shows: somebody luring in victims by posing as their soulmate, by means of getting a tatoo that said their name in a rough approximation of their handwriting. It was why strangers on the internet requesting handwritten notes was considered even more dangerous than giving out one's real name. Of course, Claire had no reason to suspect Gretchen of trying to deceive her like that-did she?


	7. Chapter 7

If the "slutty bisexual" trope was bad, the myth of the predatory sapphic woman was worse. Okay, in retrospect, kissing someone without consent was probably about the worst possible way to come out to them, but that wasn't how Gretchen had seen it at the time. She'd thought it was going to be like one of those moments at the end of a romantic movie when the couple had their big kiss. She'd even fully intended to pull away and lift up her arm to reveal her soulmark, but kissing Claire was so wonderful that it short-circuited Gretchen's mind, leaving her to stammer out a confession of love while Claire stared at her in bewilderment.

After that, things got awkward between them in a way that Gretchen wasn't sure that they'd ever be able to rectify. Claire kept making forced jokes about it, and sometimes Gretchen felt as though her roommate may have returned her feelings after all, but it was pretty clear that Claire thought she was straight. And, hey, why wouldn't she? Comphet was the worst, and for someone raised in a Christian household in Texas, Claire probably had a lot of internalized homophobia to deal with even if she ever did figure herself out. She treated being LGBT like it was weirder than her cellular regeneration-like she couldn't possibly be gay; it wasn't even an option. Still, though, she seemed to posses a kind of morbid curiosity about Gretchen's sexuality. Gretchen did her best to explain it to Claire as best she could without making things too personal to Gretchen's individual experience-which she very pointedly explained was not how things went for everyone.

"So, what about your soulmark?" Claire inquired as they studied together in the library one day. They were sitting a bit further apart from each other than they used to before Gretchen had admitted to having a crush on Claire, and when she tried to close the distance between them, Claire just shifted further away. "Is it the name of a boy or a girl?"

Yet again, it was the perfect time to show Claire her soulmark. Gretchen was even wearing a tank top at the moment, so all she had to do to get the truth out there was to gesture to the already exposed and totally visible mark. Honestly, she was surprised that Claire hadn't noticed it. Sitting in two separate beanbag chairs didn't make them turn invisible to each other-unless, of course, Claire was deliberately avoiding looking at Gretchen.

"My soulmate is a girl," Gretchen said. "It's actually how I realized I was into girls to begin with."

"Huh," Claire muttered. "Then I guess you really are gay."

"Bi," Gretchen corrected. "But, yeah, of course I am. What else would I be?"

"Well, I don't know," Claire said with a shrug. "I guess I wondered if it was just a phase."

Irritated but reminding herself that Claire had grown up in a state where homophobia was rampant and she was lucky to be as accepting as she was, Gretchen forced a smile and said, "No, by now I'm pretty confident in my identity."

Claire nodded thoughtfully. "So then who is your soulmate?"

Well, if it hadn't been the perfect opportunity to tell her before, it definitely was now. Taking in a deep breath, Gretchen asked, "Would you believe me if I told you that you were my soulmate?"

Claire scrunched up her face (which looked incredibly cute, by the way) and recoiled as if trying to hide from the question. "N-no, seriously," she said with a painfully forced laugh. "What's the name?"

"I am serious, Claire," Gretchen said. She held out her arm so that Claire could see, the soulmark very plainly visible. Just to accentuate the point, she tapped her finger on the dark gray writing on her forearm. "See? You're my soulmate."

Leaning forward, Claire drew her finger over Gretchen's soulmark as she stared at it, eyes widening in something resembling horror. "Oh, my God," she whispered. "It really is my name. We're..." She trailed off, glancing down at her own arm-as completely barren of a soulmark as always. "No, wait, that doesn't make any sense. How can I have a soulmate but no soulmark?"

"It makes more sense than me having a soulmark but no soulmate," Gretchen pointed out. When Claire didn't look convinced, she added, "Maybe you used to have one but don't anymore."

"...Maybe." Frowning, Claire closed her textbook and stuffed it into her already overfilled backpack. "Well, uh, I should probably head back to the dorm now. You can stay here and study if you like, though."

It was one of her more clumsy escape attempts, but Claire was clearly uncomfortable, and Gretchen didn't want to be the source of that. "Sure," she said, smiling despite her internal monologue more or less consisting of a despairing wail. "I'll be sure to share if I have any sudden insights about our assignments."

The moment Claire left the room, Gretchen sighed, slumping down and letting the beanbag chair sag underneath her. Well, that reveal hadn't exactly gone great. There was no way Claire believed her-she probably thought that it was some kind of trick Gretchen was playing to make Claire fall in love with her. Honestly, it stung a lot to think that Claire could suspect her of something like that, but maybe she had it coming after more or less stalking her online. She still felt guilty about that, and she hoped Claire had forgiven her, but that girl was so evasive of her true feelings sometimes that it was hard to tell.

Still, as much as she wanted Claire to return her feelings, Gretchen would never have tried to manipulate her like that! The only reason she'd told Claire that they were soulmates was, well, they were soulmates. They were meant to be together, and it wasn't going to happen unless Claire came to understand and accept that. That was how it went with most soulmates; knowing that it was their destiny to be together was often what prompted two or more people to start a relationship. In a sense, soulmarks were a self-fulfilling prophecy. Gretchen just hoped that hers would eventually wind up being fulfilled.


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N: Sorry it's been a while, I've just been busy with a bunch of stuff. Also my phone broke so that's not ideal. Anywhere here's wonderwall**

After Gretchen's failed attempt at revealing the truth, things became even more awkward between her and Claire. Gretchen just wished that things could go back to normal, even if it meant they never wound up together-being friends would have been infinitely better than being given the cold shoulder-but barring Claire having a sudden and dramatic change of heart, it didn't seem likely. The worst part about the whole thing, of course, was that it was all Gretchen's fault.

Okay, so it wasn't her fault that she had Claire's name written on her forearm in what was clearly Claire's handwriting. But the way she'd timed things? If only Gretchen had waited to convince Claire that they really were soulmates (which Gretchen was still certain they were) before confessing her feelings, Claire might not have assumed the soulmark to be fake. Honestly, Gretchen was kind of flattered that Claire thought she was that good at forging handwriting. She'd tried a couple times as a kid to fake her mom's signature on permission slips, and suffice to say it hadn't gone well. To be fair, Claire never outright stated that she thought the soulmark was fake, but it definitely came across in the way she eyed it, often remarking upon her surprise at its continued presence.

While at Claire's house on Thanksgiving, Gretchen pulled Noah aside to talk with him. Somehow, she felt that he might understand. Maybe he knew something about Claire's past that would explain her lack of a soulmark-or the burnlike smudge where a soulmark might have once been. Whether it was something Claire herself didn't know or simply something she'd neglected to mention, that was another matter.

"Um, Mister Bennet, there's something important you should know about me and your daughter," she began, rubbing her arm up and down her sleeve around where her soulmark was. "Claire doesn't believe me, but I..." she hesitated, intimidated by Noah's bespectacled gaze. "Well, I'm her soulmate."

Noah raised his eyebrows. "I've seen Claire's arm plenty of times," he said. "She doesn't have a soulmark."

"No, but I do." Rolling up her sleeve, Gretchen held it out for him to see. "Look, it's even in her handwriting! I know she's my soulmate-I've known it since years before I even met her!"

Nodding thoughtfully, Noah ran his thumb along the lettering, which must have been so familiar to him that he couldn't possibly have mistaken his daughter's handwriting. Like all soulmarks, it wasn't raised above the skin in even the slightest-it was a part of the skin, not an addition to it-although some insisted it had a different texture that was unlike anything else they'd felt (some said it felt like their soulmate's skin, but Gretchen hadn't really touched Claire enough to be able to tell.)

Noah only had to examine the soulmark for a few seconds before muttering, "It's definitely real. I should know," he added with an inflection that sent a shiver down Gretchen's spine. "I've seen plenty of imitation soulmarks in my time."

Doing her best to ignore whatever disturbing implications that last sentence carried, Gretchen rolled her sleeve back down, blushing. "I tried to tell Claire I was her soulmate, but she didn't-she doesn't believe me," she said. "Do you think you could convince her for me? I'm sure she'd listen to you."

Noah chuckled dryly. "I'm not so sure about that," he said. "Claire is growing up fast, and she's not as likely to trust everything I say as she once was."

Gretchen was about to ask why that would be-Noah seemed like a pretty trustworthy guy, despite his somewhat off-putting air-when Claire poked her head in the room.

"Hey, what are you guys talking about?" she asked, stepping forward with an inquisitive glint in her eye.

Although Gretchen was caught off-guard by Claire's entrance (had she forgotten to shut the door?) Noah took it in stride, beckoning his daughter over as if to invite her into the conversation. "We were just talking about you, actually," he said; Gretchen flinched, hoping he wouldn't choose that exact time to take her up on her request. "Your friend here was just telling me about the poem you wrote for your English class."

Claire blushed. "I didn't even know you'd read that thing," she muttered. Then, after a pause, "So, uh, what did you think of it?"

"Oh, um, it was really good!" said Gretchen (who had, in fact, not read Claire's poem, as much as she admired Noah's quick lie). "I liked how you used narrative devices... to enhance the theme."

"What was your favourite line?"

"W-well, uh," Gretchen stammered, "...It was all pretty good!"

She looked to Noah, wondering if he had read the poem, but his placid smile gave nothing away. Claire narrowed her eyes and tilted her head slightly, but the corner of her mouth twitched in bemusement.

"Are you sure you actually read it?" she asked. When Gretchen hesitated, she laughed, pulling a crumpled-up sheet of lined paper out of her pocket. "I actually have a rough draft of it right here," Claire admitted. "And I can guarantee you it's not that good."

"I'd love to hear it," said Noah, flashing Gretchen what appeared to be a smirk.

Claire's cheeks coloured a bit as she unfolded the paper. "It's really not good," she repeated. When Noah kept giving her an expectant look, she frowned, holding the paper to her chest to block it from view. "Actually, Dad, could you maybe leave? This is something kind of private."

Noah quirked an eyebrow up at that request, but he obliged, making sure to shut the door behind him when he left the room. With Claire and Gretchen left alone together, the atmosphere became a lot more awkward. Claire coughed, clearing her throat as she prepared to read the poem. She was blushing pretty heavily, and avoiding any semblance of eye contact, which made Gretchen wonder what the poem could possibly have been about. Judging by Claire wanting the two of them to be alone despite surely knowing how tense it would make the situation, maybe it had something to do with their relationship. For a moment Gretchen even entertained the thought that Claire had written her some kind of sappy love poetry talking about how they really were soulmates after all and how much of a fool she'd been for not believing it at first. Of course, that was almost certainly not the case-but Gretchen didn't actually get to find out for sure.

"'I have long'-" was as far as Claire got before suddenly stopping. Staring down at the page in front of her, she bit her lip. After a few moments which seemed to drag out for an eternity, she shook her head and stuffed the paper back in her pocket. "Actually, never mind," she mumbled before turning and dashing out of the room.


	9. Chapter 9

Later that same evening, after dinner, Claire approached Gretchen again. "Hey, sorry for running out on you like that," she said. "I guess I got scared."

"It's no problem," Gretchen said with a shrug. "Feelings can totally be scary. That's why so many people spend so long in the closet."

She winced as soon as the words left her mouth. That just sounded like she was trying to pressure Claire into coming out, which definitely wasn't the case. Even if Claire had finally come to terms with her sexuality (which Gretchen was fairly sure she still hadn't) Claire's Catholic, presumably conservative Texan family wouldn't have been the safest bet for coming out to. Sure, they seemed accepting enough-accepting of her healing ability, certainly-but it was hard to say how a family like the Bennets would react to knowing Claire was bi (or pan, or whatever she eventually chose to identify as).

However, as much as Gretchen overthought her words, Claire barely seemed to hear them. Perching herself on the arm of the couch Gretchen was lounging on, she rolled up her sleeve and began absentmindedly picking at the spot where her soulmark should have been. Up close, the skin was a little darker there than normal, and leaning in a bit closer revealed a layer of scar tissue around where the letters of her soulmate's name might otherwise have been.

"I always figured that whoever was supposed to be my soulmate died as a baby," Claire said as she ran her fingernails along the barely-noticable blemish on her forearm. "Stupid, isn't it, that that can happen? I mean, what's the point of soulmates if there's no guarantee they'll ever meet?"

Gretchen thought about telling her how scary it had been all those times when her own soulmark had scabbed over, but she decided to keep her mouth shut. If she really wanted to fix things between her and Claire, a guilt trip would not be the way to do it. Besides, Claire probably already knew how awful it always was-after all, she'd been the one dying.

"You know, it's weird," Claire went on, studying the scar tissue with an almost wistful expression. "It's the only part of me that never heals. It's the only part that still feels pain."

"It doesn't look much like a regular scabbed-over soulmark," Gretchen observed. In a forced attempt at humour, she added, "Believe me, I know from experience."

"Huh?" Claire gave her a sideways look. "How many people whose soulmates have died do you know?"

Gretchen blinked, surprised that Claire didn't understand what she meant. "I'm talking about myself," she explained after a couple more moments of confusion from Claire. "Every time you die, my soulmark scabs over."

Claire's eyes widened. A sort of guilty look came over her face, and her hand came to rest on Gretchen's arm, around where her soulmark was. She ran her fingers over the fabric of the sleeve as though expecting to feel rough bumps and scabs beneath it. It was at that moment when Gretchen realized that Claire had never known. Now she felt stupid for not realizing it-if Claire didn't even believe they were soulmates, how could she have known?

"Oh my God," Claire whispered after a moment. "I'm sorry, I-I didn't think you..." She paused, a faint blush creeping over her cheeks. "You really weren't lying about us being soulmates, then, were you?"

"Not unless my real soulmate is someone with the same name as you, the same power, and identical handwriting," Gretchen said with a teasing grin.

For a moment Claire smiled too-the giddy, disbelieving smile of a girl who'd never thought the perfect person for her existed finding out they'd been right there all along. Then her smile dropped as her gaze fell once again to her own missing soulmark.

"But what about mine?" she asked. "I still don't understand what happened to it."

Gretchen wasn't quite sure either, but she might have been getting an idea. "Did you ever get hurt really badly when you were young?" she asked.

Suddenly Claire's eyes lit up. "Yes! I was in a house fire as a baby," she explained; Gretchen could picture the cogs spinning in her brain as she put it all together. "I only survived because of my power. But since you didn't have that same power, and soulmarks are physiologically connected to your soulmate..."

"...Your soulmark never healed!" Gretchen jumped in. Taking Claire's hand, she internally rejoiced when Claire didn't make any move to resist the gesture. "Oh, Claire, this is great! Do you realize what this means?"

"It means..." returning Gretchen's gaze with sparkling eyes, Claire's giddy grin returned. "You're my soulmate."

Despite how overjoyed she was to hear those words come out of Claire's mouth, Gretchen restrained herself from making any unwanted moves. Kissing Claire without asking had probably been the biggest mistake of her life, and she wasn't about to repeat it. Even now that Claire finally believes they were soulmates, that didn't mean she would want to enter a romantic relationship right away. They were still a couple of college freshmen, after all; they'd have plenty of time later on down the line to-

Gretchen's train of thought was promptly derailed when Claire pulled her in close and kissed her, their lips sliding into each other like their interlacing fingers. At first Gretchen wasn't sure whether or not she should kiss back, but when Claire went several seconds without breaking away, she decided it would be a safe bet. It was nothing like their first kiss, that was for certain. This time it was a mutual thing-mutually performed, mutually received, and mutually wanted. It may have been the second time that Claire's lips had touched Gretchen's, but it felt more like the kind of first kiss you'd see in a sweeping romantic drama. And, from what Gretchen understood about Claire's incredibly dramatic life, that was probably pretty fitting.

For years to come, the two of them would look back on that Thanksgiving as the day they became a couple. Of course, it wasn't really all that simple. The carnival could have been considered their first date, but seeing how that all panned out, defining it as a romantic outing was a bit questionable. Plus, Claire still wasn't ready to come out just yet, so she made sure to keep their burgeoning relationship on the down-low. Still, even if they weren't quite an official couple, one thing was certain: they were soulmates, and nobody was arguing with that.


	10. Chapter 10

"Hey, Gretch, guess what?"

Glancing up from the history notes she was studying, Gretchen looked toward the door of the dorm room, where Claire was standing and grinning away in that adorable way she did sometimes. She had her arms hidden behind her back; Gretchen assumed Claire had bought her something-hopefully not from that horrible carnival. Yeah, Claire had promised not to hang out with those people again, but she'd certainly kept secrets from Gretchen before. She wondered if she was expected to actually try and guess what it was. She hoped not; she'd always been terrible at guessing games.

"Let me guess-you got a boyfriend," Gretchen joked, closing her history textbook and repositioning herself on the floor to face Claire.

Claire scrunched up her nose in amusement. "No, but close," she said. Taking her arms out from behind her back, she sat down across from Gretchen and held an arm out so she could see. Gretchen was kind of confused to see that Claire wasn't holding anything (although not particularly disappointed, since they had more than rnough stuff taking up space in their dorm anyway) until she noticed something on Claire's arm that hadn't been there before. On her forearm, where before there had only been a faint patch of grey, the name "Gretchen Berg" was now spelled out in small, tidy handwriting. It didn't really look much like Gretchen's handwriting at all, but she honestly could not have cared less.

"Oh, Claire, this is..." Gretchen gasped as she traced a finger along the tattoo ink. A little bit of it smudged-clearly the ink was still fresh-and Gretchen realized that the ink was just sitting on top of Claire's skin, not like a regular tattoo would be. "...Uh, I hope this didn't cost you too much," she said, trying to conceal her disappointment at what should have been obvious. Of course a girl with instant healing powers couldn't get a proper tattoo.

The disappointment showed on Claire's face as well, and her excited smile gave way into a grimace. "Damn it," she muttered. "I-I wanted to do this for you, Gretch, so the world could finally know that you're my soulmate, but... I guess my power is stopping me from ever having a soulmark, even a fake one."

"Claire, are you crazy?" Placing her hands on her girlfriend's shoulders, Gretchen pulled her into a hug. "Without your power, I wouldn't have you!"

"I guess so," Claire said, her voice muffled against the fabric of Gretchen's sweater.

For a moment they simply held each other, rocking back and forth slightly with the motion of their breaths. As much as she appreciated the effort of getting a fake soulmark tattoo, Gretchen really hoped Claire knew that soulmarks didn't matter to her. Heck, even if they hadn't been soulmates, Gretchen still would have wanted to be with her. The fact that it was their destiny for them to be together was basically just an added bonus. A really, really big added bonus. Gretchen was about to put a voice to this sentimentality when Claire spoke up, drawing out of Gretchen's embrace and wiping away the ink on her arm.

"You know, I bet that tattoo lady from the carnival could-"

"No," Gretchen interrupted before she could even finish the thought. "I don't want you spending any more time around those people!"

"Okay, it was just an idea," Claire said, tossing her hands up in surrender. "Geez," she added, "you sound like my dad."

"Why, what's old Mr. Bennet up to this time?"

Claire shrugged, her gaze trailing off toward the door. "I don't know if I should talk about it with you," she said. Then, in a whisper, "I want to reveal myself to the world. I think they're ready to know about me-about us."

"You're going to come out?" Gretchen asked.

"I mean, I guess you could call it-oh, wait, no!" Claire shook her head, chewing her lip as if thinking about how to rephrase herself. "By 'us', I mean other people with powers. That's who I want to show the world about."

"Oh." Gretchen slumped down a bit, admittedly kind of put down by the fact that Claire would sooner reveal that she had healing powers than that she wasn't straight. "And I guess your dad isn't too fond of that idea."

Claire nodded. "Honestly, it's like he doesn't understand me at all," she said. As soon as the words left her mouth she blushed, like she was realizing how much she sounded like a stereotypical teenager. "...Do you think I should do it?" she asked, locking eyes with Gretchen.

To be completely honest, Gretchen thought it was a terrible idea. Coming out as gay would be one thing, but at least it was only the person coming out putting themselves on the line. Claire wanted to expose hundreds, maybe even thousands of people-and to the whole world! It was not only insanely risky, but selfish. If the world at large decided they didn't like the existance of people like Claire, it could start an all-out war. However, Gretchen was sure Claire had already heard all these arguments from her dad. Right now, Claire was looking for support, and she was going to get it.

"Sure," Gretchen said, plastering a grin of encouragement across her face. "I mean, it's your life, right? Just do what you think is best. But think about it," she added solemnly.

Claire nodded, her face carrying all the grimness of a hardened soldier. It was awful to see such a serious expression on a college girl, let alone the one Gretchen loved. "I know; it's a risky decision," she said. "But it's something I need to do. You understand, don't you?"

Claire took Gretchen's hand and gazed up at her with wide, hopeful eyes. As their fingers wove together and they held each other's gaze, Gretchen realized that she did understand. Whatever Claire's decision process may have been, it was clear that revealing her ability to the world was something she'd thought long and hard about. Even if Gretchen didn't agree, so what? She loved Claire, and wanted her to be safe, but she couldn't control her. Besides, who could argue with those big green eyes?

"Of course you should do it," Gretchen said.

Claire smiled. "Thanks," she said. "It's nice to get some positive feedback."

In retrospect, that conversation should have prepared Gretchen for what happened just a few days later. She should have expected it when her soulmark scabbed over one evening while she was getting ready for bed. And, when she received a text from her mom telling her to turn on the TV just as her soulmark healed, she had a pretty good idea what was up. Still, when she turned on the news and saw Claire, looking into the camera as her wounds faded away, Gretchen may or may not have cursed under her breath.


	11. Chapter 11

**A/N: Okay I'm finally finishing this thing! Here's a little epilogue of sorts. Let it be know that I could very well have given this a depressing canon-compliant ending if I'd wanted, but after I included a scene of the characters listening to MBMBaM, I feel like I was contractually obligated to give these disaster girlfriends a happy ending.**

Although soulmates remain one of the greatest mysteries of evolution, perhaps what matters is not so much why people have them so much as what their significance. Many scientists speculate on the matter of those whose soulmates die before theu have a chance to meet, and why fate-should such a thing exist-would allow this to happen. Because of this, some researchers have speculated that perhaps soulmarks don't mean as much as they seem. They could be nothing other than a very specific type of birthmark, and the names they display purely coincidental. As a matter of fact, it has been theorized that soulmarks mean nothing whatsoever. It could even explain why some people have multiple soulmarks, while others have none. Indeed, while looking at this phenomenon from a distance, it is very tempting to say that a soulmark is just a random pattern of shapes on one's skin that happens to resemble a name.

Gretchen sighed, pausing the video she was watching, and closed her laptop. As the laptop's soft glow faded into the darkness, she took another look at her alarm clock. The glowing red numbers revealed it to be 2:30 in the morning. Man, how time flied, huh? Rubbing her eyes, she slumped down against her headboard and wondered if she should give up trying to study and just get to sleep.

In the bed next to Gretchen, her roommate was already sound asleep. For a while, Gretchen simply sat and watched her shadowy outline rise and fall with her breaths. In the dark, when she could hardly make out her roommate's sleeping form, it was easy to pretend that it was still Claire. Some small, easily fooled part of Gretchen even wanted to reach over to the other bed and brush her hand across the other girl's cheek; to tuck a stray curl of her beautiful blonde hair behind her ear. She couldn't do that, though, because it wasn't Claire. It was somebody else-a girl named Amanda who Gretchen was able to get along fine with most of the time, but it wasn't the same, not even close. Amanda was generally pretty nice, but she and Gretchen had next to nothing in common, and they were more like acquaintances than friends. Plus, Gretchen wasn't sure about her new roommate's stance on LGBT people, so just to be safe she'd been trying to hide her soulmark whenever possible. Of course, with the weather getting colder, Gretchen had a pretty good excuse to wear long-sleeved shirts all the time anyway.

It really sucked, simply put, not to know where your girlfriend was, not even being allowed to contact her for fear of the message being tracked. Gretchen totally understood why it had to be that way, but it was still a drag not to have her soulmate around. After Claire had jumped, people's reactions to people with powers had been mixed, to say the least. While some were willing to accept the existence of these abilities, others weren't so happy. Whether it was corrupt scientists looking to conduct experiments or conservative groups fearing the dangers that people with powers could pose to society, the political climate was very tense surrounding superhuman abilities and those who possessed them. After a bit of prompting from her family, Claire had gone into hiding. Not even Gretchen knew where she was, but if anything happened to her soulmate, Gretchen supposed she'd be the first to know. She wasn't sure whether that was the best thing about the whole ordeal or the worst.

Not a day went by that Gretchen didn't long to see Claire again. She hadn't even been gone for that long-it was the third week of December, less than a month after Claire's little stunt at the carnival-but every day without her felt like forever. (That was what Noah was calling the incident at the ferris wheel: Claire's "little stunt". He always sounded irritated when he said it.) Gretchen had pestered Noah for information on Claire; she knew he knew where his daughter was. He wouldn't tell her, though, and Gretchen had to admit she could kind of see why. It wasn't that Noah didn't trust her-at least, she hoped not-but if he told her, somebody else could have been listening. Or maybe, and this was probably wishful thinking, but maybe he was doing it for Gretchen's own good. If she found out where Claire was, she wouldn't hesitate to run off and find her, even if it meant dropping out of college altogether. Plus, depending on where exactly Claire had chosen to go into hiding, tracking her down might have been a dangerous process.

But, then again, Gretchen tracking Claire down could have opened the doors for some less trustworthy folk to follow in her footsteps. So, yeah, that was probably what Mr. Bennet was worried about.

As Gretchen mulled this over, she felt herself drifting slowly towards sleep. For a moment it seemed like she may have gotten a good night's rest after all, when suddenly a car horn blared outside her window, accompanied by a squealing of tires and, a moment later, a sickening crunch. Gagging, Gretchen sat up, covering her mouth with one hand while she reached over to turn her lamp on with the other. The lamp flickered to life, illuminating her forearm, and the cluster of scabs and flaky skin covering her soulmark.

"Oh, God," she whispered, waiting with bated breath for the scabbing to heal. This was the first time it had happened since Claire had gone into hiding-good thing, too, because otherwise she must not have been doing a very good job of staying undercover.

Sure enough, the scabs retracted into her skin, and her soulmark returned to normal. Gretchen breathed a huge sigh of relief and was about to lie back down when she heard the distintive clack of a rock against her window.

Hopping off her bed, Gretchen slid open her window and looked down, squinting in the darkness. There, illuminated by the headlights of a car with a dented muffler, stood Claire. She was covered in blood and her clothes were tattered, and it didn't take Gretchen long to piece together that she'd just been hit by the car parked next to her. As Claire gave Gretchen a shy wave, the car's driver honked the horn, and stuck his head out the window to yell, "Get out of my way, you freak!"

Bristling, Gretchen resisted the urge to rush to her girlfriend's defense. She knew she couldn't just jump out the window the way Claire could have if the roles had been reversed. Instead, she watched anxiously from her window as Claire picked up another rock and tossed it at the car. She got honked at again in response, but she ignored it this time, choosing instead to run over to a nearby tree and start climbing like her life depended on it. Once she was at the top, she leaned forward, reaching toward the windowsill of Gretchen's dorm.

"Uh, Claire?" Gretchen's voice cracked involuntarily as she spoke to her girlfriend for the first time in way too long. "I'm not sure that's a good idea..."

"Relax, Gretch, it'll be fine," Claire said, keeping one hand wrapped firmly around the branch of the tree she was in while the fingertips of her other hand danced just beyond the windowsill. "Even if I fall... well, y'know. Good to see you again, by the way," she added with a grin that was visible even in the dark. "I've missed you."

"I've missed you, too," Gretchen said. Holding out her hand, she took hold of Claire's wrist and pulled her toward the window. With the extra support, Claire jumped out of the tree and grabbed hold of the windowsill, which she then swung her legs up onto. As she climbed into Gretchen's dorm, she looked around with a slightly wistful expression.

"Man, just look at us," she muttered. "We're like a pair of star-crossed lovers or something, me sneaking into your room at night and all that."

"What were you doing out there, anyway?" Gretchen asked. "You almost gave me a heart attack!"

"Well, that was sort of the idea," Claire admitted. "I was standing out there throwing rocks at your window for hours; I had to do something to get your attention."

"So your solution was to get hit by a...?" Gretchen trailed off, shaking her head in fond exasperation. There were more important things to worry about than her girlfriend's unorthodox approach to getting noticed. "Aw, whatever."

Tears pricking at the corners of her eyes, she pulled Claire into a tight embrace. Claire seemed caught off guard at first, but quickly settled into Gretchen's arms, letting out a little hum of contentment as she hugged back. They pulled apart after a minute, Gretchen still brimming with questions about where Claire had been, but when she opened her mouth all that came out was "I love you."

Claire giggled, standing up on her tiptoes to give Gretchen a peck on the cheek. This made Gretchen blush furiously, which in turn caused Claire to laugh more, blushing as well. "Gretch, you're like a modern-day Sappho," she teased.

Still flustered, Gretchen smoothed out her hair and tugged at the faded shirt she'd been wearing for almost a week straight. She wanted to look at least kind of presentable, even though she figured it was a little late for that. Then she took another look at Claire, whose sweater had a tire track across the chest, and realized that maybe she shouldn't even have bothered. Both of them looked like absolute disasters, Claire arguably much more so, and that was how it should have been. They were both disasters, really, and Gretchen wouldn't have had it any other way.

"So, life's been interesting for me," Claire said as she plopped herself down on Gretchen's bed. "I'll tell you all about it... after you tell me what you've been up to," she added with a mischievious grin.

"What is there to tell?" Gretchen said with a shrug. Sitting down next to Claire, she opened her laptop to show her the video essay she'd been watching. When Claire saw the scientist in the video, her eyes lit up.

"Hey, I know that guy!" she exclaimed, tapping on the screen excitedly. "Babe, you've gotta show me the rest of this video!"

Gretchen raised her eyebrows. "Okay," she said, unpausing the video as Claire snuggled up next to her. It felt so right for them to be beside each other, even if it was just to watch a YouTube video. They belonged together.

...However, this hypothesis is founded largely on an incorrect assumption: that the letters formed by soulmarks are random. Were this truly the case, most soulmarks would not appear as a name at all, and certainly not in a perfect match to the handwriting of one's soulmate. They even change thrughout childhood at nearly the exact same rate at which a chld's handwriting is expected to improve. Additionally, all the people who have found themselves happier with their soulmates than with any other individual should be more than enough evidence to disprove this theory.

Alternatively, soulmarks may mean more than anyone can know, and meeting one's soulmate may be akin to finding the perfect job or the ideal house. It does not happen for everyone, but for those who do get the blessing of meeting their soulmate, it often makes a vast improvement in their life. Whatever the case may be, and even if the many mysteries behind soulmates are never solved, this phenomenon is clearly far more than skin-deep.

-end-


End file.
